


We Play to Forget

by MadameRed



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3287645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameRed/pseuds/MadameRed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of Isabela's departure, Hawke seeks comfort in Anders. Anders, in turn, offers to take Hawke's mind off of things. Sexily.</p><p>Just enough angst to balance out the sweet, dirty smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Play to Forget

Siobhan Hawke snagged a bottle of wine on her way through the basement of her estate. Her mother said that it was one of the largest wine cellars in Kirkwall; shelves upon barrels upon casks filling the cool, subterranean level of the estate. It had all been cleared after her grandparents died and Gamlen sold it to the slavers. Using some of her share of the wealth from the Deep Roads expedition, she brought in a crew to clear out the remaining rubble and bring in several new wine shelves. They stood floor to ceiling; four were full and two stood empty. They looked barren and lonely when one took in the expanse of the room, but her mother had been overjoyed to see whole, dust-free furniture filled with wine again. With Hawke's growing importance in the city, refilling the cellar had fallen to the efforts of her mother and Bodhan.

She trudged slowly down the stairs leading to Darktown, her steps lacking her usual sly grace. She shouldered open the door and carefully picked her way down the ladder, the bottle of wine wedged under her arm. She didn't know why she was taking the wine to Anders. Justice rarely let him drink, and he certainly hadn't eased up in the nearly three years that she'd known him. She knew better than to try and wheedle him into drinking with her; she couldn't stand the longing in his eyes as he fought with what he wanted versus the will of the spirit within him. Maybe she just needed both the wine and Anders separately.

Plus, it didn't rain in Darktown. She might have gone to Fenris' mansion if she felt like being rained on. She might have slunk past the Hanged Man and made her way to the alienage to sleep in the rafters of Merrill's house, listening to the elf hum old elvhen lullabies. Getting to Anders' clinic didn't require her to leave her house, though. The cellar exit was practically his doorstep.

It was approaching the hour that he usually stopped seeing patients, and things had been calm lately, so she hoped that he wasn't too tired. She just needed someone,  _anyone_ , to sit with. She was unsure if she even wanted to talk. She wanted to sit beside one of her friends, perhaps hold their hand, and she very much wanted to close her eyes and stop the world for a little while.

The light was on at Anders' clinic and the doors were ajar. Shifting the bottle of wine back into her hand, she slipped into the clinic, not bothering with silence or subterfuge. She glanced around and found Anders by a rickety table, packing dried elfroot into a chipped clay jar.

"Knock, knock," she said, tapping the wine bottle against the door frame. To his credit, he didn't startle anymore when someone arrived. He claimed that it was because the templars had stopped rolling through Darktown as much as they used to, but Varric had mentioned privately to her one day that it probably had more to do with the cellar entrance being reclaimed by a friend. Should he be alerted to the templars, he could nip into the cellar and stay there until they had left. He turned to face her then, and he smiled at her.

"Hawke, good to see you. Just give me a moment," he told her. She dropped down onto one of the less stained cots, tucking one of her legs under her. She watched as he capped the jar of elfroot and placed it at the back of the table, against the wall. He attempted to put the lid on a jar of embirium, but it proved too full. He shoved it beside the elfroot jar, wiped his hands on his robes and turned to Hawke. He moved toward her and sat beside her. He looked less tired, she noted. He nodded toward the bottle of wine in her lap.

"What's the occasion?" Anders asked. Hawke shrugged.

"None, really. I just didn't-"

She was interrupted when a man staggered in clutching his bloody arm and swaying drunkenly. Blood poured from a very broken nose and his lip was split. Anders gave her an apologetic smile and stood. Shaking her head, Hawke stood with him.

"I'll help," she offered. Anders beamed at her, and then turned to the man.

"Who handed you your arse this time?" he asked, shaking his head.

"Bar fight at the Hanged Man," he grunted, his speech sluggish. Anders rolled his eyes.

"Well, come in. Have a seat there, just a moment," he said, gesturing to an empty cot. He leaned out the door and extinguished the lanterns with a bit of magic, then shut the doors. He stepped up to the man and tilted his head back, examining first his nose and then the gash on his arm. He picked up a clean rag and glanced at Hawke, who stood beside him, gazing with morbid curiosity at the man.

"Will you get me a bit of elfroot salve and another rag?" he asked. Hawke nodded and went to fetch the things he requested. As she reached for the jar of salve, she heard a wet crunch and a howl of pain as Anders set the man's nose. She chuckled to herself and retrieved the items, picking up her pace when she turned and saw that the rag Anders had shoved under the man's nose was rapidly soaking up quite a lot of blood. Anders tossed the now-soaked rag away from him and Hawke handed him the fresh one. She set the salve down and scanned the room for another. She saw a two more on the table Anders had been working at, and she brought those over as well. She gently began to pat the wound on his arm, grateful that the blood hadn't yet dried and wiped away easily. She knew enough of what to do, having helped Anders at the clinic more than once, and once she had cleaned the wound and staunched the flow of blood, she cast about for a needle and thread. She would leave the stitching up to Anders, thinking of the jagged scar her shoddy workmanship had left on Carver's arm when they were younger.

"Here - I'll get some deathroot for his nose, and you can stitch his arm," she offered, setting the needle down beside the man. Anders nodded, licking his lips absentmidedly as he concentrated on shoving gauze up the man's nose to help reshape it.

"You ain't gonna magic be better?" the man whined. Anders pinched his nose to secure the gauze, causing the man to squawk in pain.

"It's late, I'm tired, and another man kicking your head in over watery ale isn't an emergency I want to waste my mana on," Anders chuckled.

"Wudn't no man, was dat crazy Ribaini," he muttered, scowling down at the floor as best he could. Anders smirked.

"Your pirate's been causing trouble at Corff's," he called goodnaturedly to Hawke. She stepped up beside him again, her brows knit together as she dabbed her finger in the salve of deathroot.

"Hmm," she murmured, her lips pressed tight together. Anders side-eyed her, one blond eyebrow arching slightly, but said nothing. Hawke was grateful for his silence at the moment, and she gently applied a bit of the numbing salve to the man's swollen nose. She dragged the salve along under his eyes, knowing from experience that his cheekbones would become tender soon. The air prickled around them as Anders called a bit of ice to his hand to quickly numb the gash on his arm.

Working quickly and nimbly as only a skilled healer could, Anders patched up the man's arm and coated the stitched gash with a layer of pungent salve, then wrapped it up in a cloth bandage. Hawke scraped a bit of the deathroot salve into a shallow tin cap and handed it to the man for later use.

"Right, that's it. Try to avoid running your mouth, yes?" Anders said wearily. "Come back in a few days if you need your bandages changed." The man grunted his thanks and shuffled out of the clinic, shutting the door behind him. Anders waved Hawke over to a basin of water, and they both washed their hands with lye soap.

"So, Bela's been tearing up the bar. Did she lose money to Aveline again?" he asked, a smirk on his face, as he dried his hands. He passed the towel to Hawke, who accepted it quietly. She didn't lift her eyes from her hands as she spoke.

"Isabela left me," she said quietly. Anders' eyebrows shot up into his hairline.

"What? What happened?" he asked, stunned. Hawke didn't answer him at first. She dropped the towel onto the table beside the basin and wandered back to the cot she'd occupied when she came in. She dropped down onto it and looked up at Anders, who had followed her. "Hawkey, what happened?" Her lip quivered; he hadn't called her Hawkey in a long time, not since Bethany had been taken by the Grey Wardens.

"Oh, it's all my fault," she said miserably. Anders sat down beside her, retrieving the wine and pulling the cork from it with his teeth. He took a pull of it and passed it to Hawke.

"I sincerely doubt it," he said. Hawke took three large gulps of the wine and then drew in a shuddering breath in an attempt to regain control over her emotions.

"I... I was just  _joking_  yesterday. She was whining about the walk from the Hanged Man to Hightown every night, and she's been staying with me  _every night_  for nearly three months now, her room at the tavern was all but bare," she babbled, her voice wavering, but not breaking. Not just yet. "And I was playing with Bayne and not thinking and I said, 'Most of your crap is here, why don't you just move in?' And I still wasn't thinking and she just froze up and left." She took another drink of wine and wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. "And.. and I went out today to find her but I  _couldn't_ , and Merrill said that Isabela would meet me back at my house tonight like we planned before all this happened, and I thought it..." Hawke broke off, taking another deep, gasping breath. She stood, thrusting the bottle at Anders, and paced in front of him. 

"I was so  _fucking stupid_ , Anders," she raged. "I thought everything was going to be fine. I was waiting for her, like she wanted me to, and when she came upstairs she just--" Her throat constricted and her chest felt tight. She drew in a ragged breath and turned away, angry with the stinging in her eyes. She heard the creak of the cot behind her and knew that Anders now stood behind her. His long arms came up and wrapped around her neck, crossing at her collarbone, his hands gripping her shoulders. He pulled her back against him and rested his cheek against the top of her head. "She told me she couldn't - there couldn't be an 'us' anymore. That things had to go back to just Isabela and  _Hawke_ ," she said, her own surname sour on her lips. "She hasn't called me Hawke in private in over a year," she murmured. She brought her hand up to clasp at Anders' wrist and bowed her head, clenching her eyes and grinding her teeth against the tears. 

"I can't even be angry with her. She always spoke of leaving again one day, but I thought if I loved her enough, she'd see that and stay. All I did was scare her off," she said bitterly. 

"You can't help what you feel, Hawkey," Anders murmured against her hair. He squeezed his arms gently. "And you can't help who Isabela is."

Hawke breathed out a husky, cold laugh and pulled away from Anders, spinning around to face him. 

"Why is it that we come to care for people who can never be right for us?" She pointed vaguely upwards. "If the Maker exists and loves us  _non-mages_  so damned much, why does He toss two people together just to watch them fall apart?" Her clenched fist shook at her side and she breathed heavily, sniffling once. She laughed again, mocking herself. 

"And now I'm standing in Darktown, dumped." Hawke took a deep breath and sighed. She put her hands on her hips and smiled, shaking her head. "She had me laid out like a feast, and now I'm left high and dry." She crinkled her nose. "Well, in a manner of speaking."

Anders' eyes widened, and then a grin slowly began to spread out across his face. The corners of his eyes crinkled as a chuckle slipped out. He covered his mouth with a hand and muttered a 'Sorry!' before he began laughing again. True laughter out of Anders was rare and infectious, and despite her overall terrible mood, Hawke found herself chuckling along with him.

"You're an arse, Anders." He held up his hands in defense, attempting to reign in his laughter.

"I'm sorry, Hawkey. It's not funny," he managed to say before another bout of laughter bubbled up. She punched him in the shoulder.

"Says the laughing man," she teased. 

"No, really, it's not - your situation isn't funny." He scrubbed a hand down his face, calming his laughter but leaving his grin in place. "Just be lucky you're a woman. If you'd been left like that as a man, it would hurt enough that you'd have stopped off at the Rose before you made your way here." Hawke huffed and crossed her arms.

"It might not hurt, but it certainly isn't comfortable," she said. "I feel like I sat in cold mud." Anders laughed again before he could stop himself. He took a step backward and dropped down into the cot again. He tucked a leg under him and leaned back on his hands, patting the space beside him. She shook her head and smiled, sitting down beside him again. She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. She stared at the ground, the bloody rags, the still open jar of deathroot salve. Anything to keep her from thinking of Isabela. She tucked her legs up beside her and leaned against him. 

"Want help with that?" he asked after a moment. Hawke pulled back and squinted at him with a smirk. 

"You would take advantage of my grief? I am shocked and appalled," she said, placing a hand upon her chest in mock scandal. Anders rolled his eyes.

"Oh, please. A good fuck helped me last time I was in your shoes," he said, shoving at her shoulder with his. "And Justice won't allow for any strings, anyway." 

"Did it hurt less after?" Hawke asked quietly. 

"You know the answer to that," he murmured, his gaze drifting somewhere far away. "But it was a good distraction in the moment." She smiled, but shook her head. 

"I'll pass for now," she said, leaning in and pressing a kiss to his cheek. She stood, pulled him to his feet, and hugged him round his waist. His arms encircled her shoulders, pulling her close to him. "Thank you for listening, Anders." He smiled and kissed the top of her head. 

"I'm here when you need me, Hawke," he said. She pulled back, smiling wanly, and gave his hand a squeeze. She picked up the bottle and saluted him with it, and then quietly slipped through the door and into the night of Darktown. 

Hawke slowly approached the ladder to her cellar, taking another drink of wine. She paused, leaning her forehead against the cool stone. She closed her eyes, drew back her free hand, and punched the wall. The skin of her knuckles split open and she hissed in pain. Her vision blurred, and she quickly rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm. She turned and hurled the wine bottle away from her, wincing as it shattered in the corner. Red wine sprayed across the dirt floor, reminding her of blood or fat teardrops. She very firmly pushed Isabela out of her mind and whirled around, marching herself back to the doors of the clinic. She was two steps from it when the door burst open and Anders nearly bowled into her, fire crackling in one hand. His eyes were sharp and hard, his stance defensive, until he registered her standing there. 

"I heard -" His eyes fell upon the shattered bottle and no one but Hawke standing near. He lowered his hands, extinguishing his magic and breathing a sigh of relief. "Are you all right?"

Hawke closed the distance between them in two quick steps, grabbing Anders' face and pulling his lips down to hers. He was smooth, she gave him that; he recovered quickly from his shock, placing one hand on her wrist and winding the other around to rest on her back, drawing her into him. He backed them up into the clinic and then pressed Hawke against the door to close it. He pulled back barely a fraction, his hands gripping at her waist. She fisted her hands in his robes and gave him a little shake, pressing them together again.

"Make me forget, Anders. For just five minutes, I want to forget," she pleaded. Anders paused, his fingers kneading at Hawke's waist. He nosed at her cheek until she tilted her head, and he kissed at her jawline, nipping a path to her ear. His hot breath curled around her ear and his teeth grazed the shell of it. 

"It'll be a bit more than five minutes, sweetheart," he murmured huskily. She shivered in anticipation and pressed her hips forward, grinding into his pelvis. He wrapped one arm around her waist and slid his other hand into her short black hair, guiding her into a deeper kiss. She tilted her head and clutched at his robes, leaning against him. His chest was broad and despite being a fair deal leaner than he'd been when they first met, he was still muscular from whipping his staves around in battle. He settled her against him and walked them back through the clinic. They passed through the curtained doorway that led to Anders' small private quarters. A scrap of a candle burned, its pale orange light flickering weakly and threatening to go out entirely as they fell to the cot together. Her quirked up in a half smile as she tugged at the buckles on his robes. 

"These things are the worst, no wonder you never get laid anymore," she rasped. Anders chuckled and leaned back on his knees, unfastening the buckles with practiced ease. Hawke scooted back until she was sitting up and quickly divested herself of her tunic. As she lifted it over her head, her bloody knuckles scraped against the wall behind her, and she couldn't bite back the hiss of pain. Anders paused, nearly finished with the last buckle, and stared at her. 

"Why are you always hurting yourself, Hawkey?" he murmured, shaking his head. He reached out and took her hand, gingerly covering her wounded knuckles with his free hand. A pale green glow unfurled from his palm, sinking down into her hand and knitting the flesh back together. 

"I'm an adorable ball of rage?" she ventured. Anders rolled his eyes, then inspected her knuckles. Fresh, pink skin stretched where the tender flesh was once revealed. He pressed a kiss against them, then flipped her hand to mouth at her wrist. He kissed his way up her arm as his left hand skimmed up her flat stomach, purposefully avoiding lingering on her breasts. She arched into his touch and craned her neck, allowing his lips to travel up her neck. The hand that was still holding her wrist trailed along her arm until it came to rest on her breast band. Hawke's hands grappled with the last buckle of his robes, finally managing to undo it. She pushed them from his shoulders, and he leaned back again briefly to shuck them. He bent back over her, kissing her again, and allowed his hands to cup her breasts through the fabric. His thumbs brushed over her nipples, which wasted no time in pebbling up under his touch.

She fisted her hands in the thin tunic he wore beneath his robes, gripping it and pulling it over his head. She threw it to the ground and placed her hands on his bare shoulders. He was warm and she could feel the raised scars on his back from the brutalities of the templars. She bit back a scowl and focused on his tongue, which was gently stroking hers. He suckled on her tongue and then broke the kiss, kissing the column of her throat. He snaked a hand around to her back, made easy as she arched against him. He untucked the fabric and loosened it until he could tug it away easily. 

Anders left her throat and kissed his way down her collarbone, approaching her breasts with something akin to reverence. His hot breath fell over a nipple, and Hawke squirmed under him. A hand came up to gently caress the breast that his mouth wasn't attending to, his thumb swirling over the nipple until it hardened to a stiff peak. He dragged the flat of his tongue over her nipple and she arched under him, inhaling deeply. 

"Don't be gentle," she gasped. He responded by biting at her nipple sharply, and Hawke keened under him. The soft kneading at her other breast turned to a firm squeeze, and he rolled his hips into her. She could feel his erection pressing into her thigh and she pushed her hips up, seeking friction. 

He sucked hard at her nipple and then released it with a pop, turning his attention to her other breast. Her hands went into his hair, threading through the blond locks and forcing the tie out of it. Gripping the base of his skull, she hauled him up for another fierce kiss. He braced himself on his forearm next to her head and squeezed her breast in response to the roughness of the kiss. Hawke took advantage of his occupied hands and blazed a trail down his body with her own, deftly unlacing his trousers. She slid her hands around and cupped his arse, simultaneously pushing his trousers down just enough to expose him. 

She wrapped her hand around his cock and he broke the kiss, dropping his head to groan into her shoulder. He rolled his hips into her hand and bit at her shoulder. Her thumb slid easily against the head of his erection, spreading the precome there. She pumped him slowly, squeezing and releasing and twisting her wrist. Her own hips gave an involuntary jerk as she felt his hot length pulsing in her hand. With a hum, Anders' hand left her breast and wandered down the flat expanse of her stomach, tugging at the laces on her breeches and sliding his hand inside. He bypassed her smallclothes completely, his long fingers deftly teasing her folds. He smirked, turning his head to press a kiss below her ear. 

"You weren't kidding," he murmured. She let her eyes flutter shut as she gyrated her hips against his hand, trying to urge him to stop teasing. 

"Take some credit," she muttered. His smirk broadened into a grin.

"Oh, I will," he said, his voice all at once cheerful and husky. The pad of his thumb finally found her clit, and she arched her back. He dipped his thumb into her slit, shallow enough to make her hiss in frustration, then went back to circling her clit with just enough pressure to build her up. With a frustrated noise, she squeezed his cock again, teasing the slit at the top. Anders groaned and sat up abruptly, working her breeches and smalls down her legs. He discarded his own boots and trousers, cursing at the knot on one of his boots. After what seemed like several long, cockblocking minutes, he finally flung his boots to the ground and nearly pounced back on top of her. He nipped at her throat and reached down to guide himself into her slick cunt. He sank into her, reveling in the long, satisfied hum she let out. He gave a few shallow, gentle thrust, opening her up to him and slicking his cock with her juices. 

When she began to rock her hips down to meet his thrusts, he lifted one of her legs and draped it over his shoulder. He pulled back and thrust into her roughly. Hawke met his pace eagerly, squeezing her own breasts and tweaking her nipples almost painfully. He hammered into her, setting an unforgiving pace. His height allowed him to curl his body around hers as he fucked into her. He mouthed at the side of her neck, groaning and snapping his hips as she bit at his shoulder. She raked her nails down his back and met his every thrust with enough force to bruise her pelvis. 

He nipped at her earlobe and she squeezed her inner muscles around him; he huffed a laugh into her ear and pulled nearly all the way out of her, then slammed back in with a wet noise. He lifted his chest from her torso and grasped her hips. The angle he found himself at now had Hawke gasping beneath him, her hips faltering in their quest to meet his and drive him mad. One of his hands drifted to her clit and thumbed at it with just the right amount of pressure. Coupled with his cock pummeling into her, Hawke moaned lowly as she felt pressure coiling in her belly --

Then suddenly there was a spark, a vibration, a shock of energy rolling through her cunt and she gasped as her orgasm took her by surprise, squeezing and pulling him deep into her like a vice. He fucked her through it, swallowing her breathy moans with wet, open mouthed kisses. 

"Cheater," she mumbled against his lips. Anders grinned against her but said nothing, focusing on thrusting into her. Her inner muscles still twitched and fluttered around him, overly sensitive. Her eyes rolled back as his cock kept brushing against that marvelous spot inside of her. "A-Anders," she moaned, low and nearly gruff.

"Fuck," he hissed. His hips stuttered and he groaned into her neck as he spilled himself within her, thrusting in deep to ride out the waves of his climax. With a final twitch of his hips, he stilled, leaning over her and breathing heavily against her shoulder. Her leg slipped from his shoulder and she threaded her fingers through his slightly damp hair. He gently withdrew from her still trembling body, twisting to lie beside her on the cot. He grinned up at the ceiling and let out a sigh that could only be managed by the well and truly fucked. He turned his head to direct his post-coital glow at Hawke only to find her breathing heavily and blinking rapidly. His smile vanished instantly; he sat up and pulled up the old blanket from the foot of the cot. 

"Come here, Hawkey," he murmured softly, coaxing her to lie on her side. She rolled into him, pressing her forehead against his sternum and drawing in a ragged breath. He wrapped her in his arms and in the blanket, and if he heard the soft  _tap, tap, tap_  of teardrops falling to the cot, she was grateful that he didn't say anything.

**Author's Note:**

> I love Hawke. So obviously I must put her through hell. Shh, bby, just take it. Anders will make it all better...
> 
> *Not beta'd, so please point out any spelling errors*


End file.
